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Type 80 MBT
The''' Type 80 Main Battle Tank (MBT)''' is an upgraded variant of the older Type 59 MBT and was widely used by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the '91 Disaster. After the collapse of the People's Republic of China in 1991 many found their way into the hands of Chinese warlords. Design Comapred to the Type 59 the Type 80 has a redesigned hull, which is longer than that of the Type 59. Front of the hull and turret can be fitted with composite armor or Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) panels for increased protection. The Type 80 features steel side skirts, common to all Chinese MBTs. The tank is powered by a liquid cooled, turbocharged 730hp 12150L-7BW diesel derived from the German technology. At its standard battle weight of 39.5t, this gives a power-to-weight ratio of about 18.48. The maximum speed by road is 57km/h. Armament The Type 80 is armed with the British designed L7 105-mm rifled gun which can fire all standard NATO 105-mm ammunition, many of which is also manufactured in China (with or often without license approval). This gun is loaded manually. Secondary armament consists of 7.62-mm coaxial machine gun and 12.7-mm anti-aircraft machine gun. Operational History The Taiwan Straits War The Type 80 served in Taiwan in just limited numbers it still being relatively new in service. Nevertheless it acquitted itself well against the US-built Taiwanese tanks although reliability was somewhat questionable. The '91 Disaster The Type 80 was one of the best tanks the PLA could field against the Soviet and Indian tank forces. While it could hold its own against many of the older model Soviet tanks the higher quality of Indian Chieftains meant that only superior numbers guaranteed victory. Exact details of the performance of the tank in combat are understandably hard to get hold of following the collapse of the People's Republic of China. Chinese Warlords Following the fall of the People's Republic of China in 1991 the Type 80 (as with nearly all surviving tanks in China) found their way into the hands of the warlords whose various factions dominated the vast nation. Because of its superior performance to older tanks like the Type 59 it was always a highly prized acquisition. Many of the warlord Type 80s would be destroyed or captured by the Chinese Central Government during the War of Chinese Unification. Just how many survived the '91 Disaster in the hands of warlords cant be determined but their operators were in deed bold. On January 12th 1997 one example fired on a Royal New Zealand Navy patrol boat from a position on the coast as the vessel carried out a trade protection mission on behalf of the Hong Kong government. The patrol boat returned fire with a 30mm chain gun damaging the Type 80 forcing it to withdraw. Chinese Central Government The creation of the Chinese Central Government saw the Type 80 put back in to production in an effort to combat the warlords in the War of Chinese Unification. These new build Type 80s suffered from chronic unreliability as a result of poor manufacturing standards (but were no more unreliable than their warlord counterparts). The new Type 80s differed little from the original model but the tank was always intended as stop gap while production of the improved Type 90 MBT was undertaken. In 2014 the Type 80 is still a major component of the Central Government's arsenal but has been superseeded by the Type 90. Category:Tanks